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Feline or canine?

Time 20
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The answers

Feline or canine?

Feline 10

  • Lynx Right Wrong

    Known for the tufts of hair on its ears, the lynx is a wild cat of the forests of Europe and North America. Its large furry paws work like snowshoes.

  • Cheetah Right Wrong

    The fastest land animal, able to exceed 100 km/h in short bursts. Its claws only partly retract, which helps it grip the ground at full speed, but it is a felid all the same.

  • Lion Right Wrong

    A big cat of Africa, with a small population in India. It is the only felid that lives in groups: a pride brings together related females, their cubs and one or a few males.

  • Cat Right Wrong

    The domestic cat descends from the African wildcat, a small felid. Its domestication began nearly 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, when it hunted the rodents raiding grain stores.

  • Puma Right Wrong

    Also called the cougar, this felid lives from Canada to the southern Andes. Despite its size, it cannot roar: it hisses, spits and meows like the small cats.

  • Leopard Right Wrong

    A large spotted felid of Africa and Asia. The black panther is not a separate species: it is a leopard with a dark coat, on which the spots can still be made out.

  • Tiger Right Wrong

    The largest of all felids: a male Siberian tiger can weigh more than 250 kg. Unlike most cats, it enjoys water and is an excellent swimmer.

  • Serval Right Wrong

    A small African cat with long legs and large ears. A champion jumper, it can leap more than two metres high to catch a bird as it takes off.

  • Caracal Right Wrong

    This wild cat of Africa and Asia, with long black tufts on its ears, can leap nearly three metres to catch birds in flight. Despite looking like a lynx, it belongs to a genus of its own.

  • Ocelot Right Wrong

    A small cat of Central and South America with a coat marbled with rosettes. Long hunted for its fur, it is now protected in most of the countries where it lives.

Canine 10

  • Coyote Right Wrong

    A close cousin of the wolf, the coyote is a North American canid. Highly adaptable, it has even settled in big cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago.

  • Red fox Right Wrong

    The red fox belongs to the same family as the wolf and the dog: the canids. It is the most widespread wild carnivore in the world, from Europe to Australia, where it was introduced.

  • Wolf Right Wrong

    The grey wolf is a canid and the ancestor of the domestic dog. It lives in family packs built around a breeding pair and can travel dozens of kilometres in a single night.

  • Dog Right Wrong

    Domesticated from the wolf more than 15,000 years ago, the dog is a canid. From the chihuahua to the Great Dane, every breed belongs to one and the same species.

  • Jackal Right Wrong

    A canid of Africa and Asia that looks like a small wolf. An opportunist, it hunts small animals but also eats fruit and the leftovers of large predators.

  • Otocyon Right Wrong

    Nicknamed the bat-eared fox, this canid of eastern and southern Africa feeds mostly on insects, especially termites, which it locates by ear.

  • Lycaon Right Wrong

    The lycaon, or African wild dog, is a canid that hunts in packs. Its coat, patched with black, tan and white, is unique to each individual.

  • Fennec Right Wrong

    The smallest canid: a Saharan fox with huge ears. They help it hear prey moving under the sand and release the heat of the desert.

  • Raccoon dog Right Wrong

    With its black mask, it is often mistaken for a raccoon, but it is indeed a canid, native to East Asia. It is the only canid that spends part of the winter in a state of torpor.

  • Maned wolf Right Wrong

    Despite its name and its look of a fox on stilts, this South American canid is neither a wolf nor a fox. It eats a lot of fruit, especially the 'wolf apple'.

Felids on one side, canids on the other: two great families of carnivorous mammals found on almost every continent. Each includes large wild predators, small and secretive species and a pet that everyone knows. Yet resemblances can be misleading: a name, pointed ears, a spotted coat or a cat-like size are not always enough to tell which family an animal belongs to. Swipe each animal to the right side before the timer runs out.

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Swipe the card left or right
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10 cards, 20 seconds: the timer starts with your first choice.

Frequently asked questions

What is a felid?

A carnivorous mammal of the Felidae family, also called a feline. Felids have a short muzzle and usually retractable claws.

What is a canid?

A carnivorous mammal of the Canidae family. Canids have a long muzzle, non-retractable claws and are often good endurance runners.

Are felids and canids related?

Only distantly: both families belong to the order Carnivora, but their lineages split more than 40 million years ago. Felids are grouped with the feliforms, alongside hyenas and mongooses; canids with the caniforms, alongside bears and seals.

How many species are there in each family?

There are around forty species of felids and about thirty-five species of canids alive today. Both families live on every continent except Antarctica. Australia, for its part, has no native wild felid.

Photo credits

Caracal : Photo Leo za1, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons ; Ocelot : Photo Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons ; Raccoon dog : Photo Erik Mandre, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons ; Maned wolf : Photo Ferrarezi Jr., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons